Thursday afternoon. As I walk across a parking lot, a dot tailed whiteface dragonfly darts it front of me. He land on a bright yellow parking line – fully mature, with an ebony body, one vibrant yellow dot on his tail, and a face as white as snow. I bent down to look at him, but he dashed off to the next yellow line. As I approached he dashed off once more – again to the next yellow line. And so we traversed the parking lot.

I haven’t seen many dragons this spring, so Sunday morning I went to the McClendon Trails to do something about that. The grass trails are built up around a well field that provides municipal water. It is ideal Odonate habitat- clean spring fed streams spill into a large shallow marsh, surrounded by acres of open grassland.

It was cool when I arrived – temperatures around 55F – but shortly after getting to the trails I was greeted by this Common Baskettail:

Common Baskettail Dragonfly

Common Baskettail Dragonfly

That was a nice start, but thing slowed down for a while. The next hour brought few dragonflies, though I wandered by the creek and marsh and observed numerous Crescentspot and Red Admiral butterflies. As the temperatures rose, a few damselflies became active, and I managed to get this shot of a an Eastern Forktail:

Eastern Forktail Damselfly

That was shot on the edge of a small wooded area – old apple trees mixed with scruffy pines and maples, remnants of the farm that once was there. A small clearing a few yards away provided the next opportunities – here’s a Four Spotted Skimmer, a species that is considered quite common but that I rarely see:

Four Spotted Skimmer Dragonfly

I’m a little disappointed in that shot - I had high hopes for it as I pressed the shutter button. Aside from the partially missing leg (something not obvious in the camera finder) I managed to clip just the tip of the wing in this exposure, which turns out to be the only really sharp shot of this subject. (It was bouncing around in the breeze.) Oh well – it’s a not a bad start for the season.

Following that, I encountered this last dragon of the day – I’m not sure what it is. The gap between the eyes suggests a Clubtail – family Gomphidae – but otherwise my field guides come up dry. The yellow marking on the second segment of all 6 legs is particularly distinctive.

Unidentified Gomphidae

Dragonfly season has begun – belatedly this year, but it is here now. More shots to come in the weeks ahead.